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Friday Reflection: Just Keep Going

Hope is a reason to take action, to make a plan and then to change the plan when it isn't working....

I’m never sure where to start when I
tell my story. I was a severely anxious and overly-sensitive child with
recurring nightmares, OCD-like rituals, and a host of sensory issues. I
remember having body dysmorphic thoughts and feelings as early as 4 years old.
At 13, my anxiety was replaced by the severe depression that would be my near
constant companion for the next 10 years. My path into my eating disorder
started at 14 with restricting my food intake so I wouldn’t gain weight after
giving up the sports I had been active in my whole life. My weight fluctuated
for the next three years as I alternated between restricting and over-eating
but never enough that anyone noticed. And then, few weeks before my 18th
birthday, I stopped eating almost completely. Thing got very bad quite quickly.
And then they got worse. The next six years would see me caught in a never
ending cycle of binging, purging, starving, abusing diet pills and laxatives,
over-exercising, and self-harming. I was often suicidal, experienced frequent
panic attacks, used drugs and alcohol and engaged in every self-destructive, impulsive behavior you can think of from
driving almost everywhere at 100 mph without a seatbelt to walking through
dangerous parts of foreign cities alone in the middle of the night.

Honestly I’m not sure that any of that
matters - when it started, how long I was sick, how much weight I lost, or the
specific behaviors that I engaged in. Here is what does matter: My illness did
not fit neatly into any diagnostic categories. I am both incredibly anxious and
highly impulsive. My depressive episodes are accompanied simultaneously by
hypomanic symptoms. I crossed the lines between anorexia, bulimia, and ednos
more times than I can count. Even now I do not fit into a PTSD diagnosis but I
clearly suffer from trauma related symptoms. I want people to know that even
from an incredibly complicated and muddled starting point, recovery is
possible.

I celebrated five years in recovery
this month although, as with the illness, it is hard to pinpoint exactly when
recovery started. Was it when I stopped binging and purging? When I stopped
over-exercising? When I stopped counting calories or relying rigidly on a meal
plan? Was it when I reached what everyone thought was my “healthy” weight or
when my weight stabilized 20lbs above that number? I don’t know for sure when I
stopped being sick but I can tell you what being well looks like. It looks like
eating all types of foods without guilt or fear. It looks like being active in
ways I enjoy because I want to not because I have to. It looks like playing
soccer once a week, not caring that I’m not very good, and drinking beer and
eating nachos with my teammates afterwards. Recovery means accepting that I need
to maintain my weight where my body wants to be even if I don’t really like it.
It means understanding my life-long vulnerability to my illness and doing the
things I need to to stay well. It looks like asking for support when I am
struggling.

People ask me how I got better. I tell
them it took a lot of food, finding the right medications and learning the
right skills. It took a lot of time and support from people around me and a
huge amount of luck - a million little things happened at the right time to keep
me on the right track and a million little things that could have derailed me
did not happen. I know this answer is frustratingly vague and I so wish I had
more concrete advice to give them.

There is one thing I can say with the
utmost certainty: finding good information about my illness changed the course
of my life. I found F.E.A.S.T in 2007 and began reading the forum daily. Until that
point I had only encountered old school ideas about eating disorders - that it
was my parents’ fault or society’s fault, both of which I interpreted as
meaning that it was mostly my fault. I wish I could say that I was an instant
convert to a biologically-based view of EDs or that once converted I was able
to immediately begin to apply the principles to my own recovery, but neither of
those are the truth. At first I thought the parents onATDTwere horribly
misguided - how could they not know that eating disorders aren’t about food? I
was, however, immediately struck by how much these parents cared about their
children and so I kept reading and gradually noticed something: their kids
seemed to be getting better while almost everyone I knew from treatment stayed
sick. So I started reading the books and articles recommended on the forum and
slowly my view of eating disorders in general and my narrative about my own
illness - and what was needed for recovery - began to change. This new
perspective allowed me to begin to forgive myself and my family. It allowed me
stop searching for reason and meaning where there was none, where there was
only ever my own muddled brain chemistry playing malicious tricks on me. It
took another three years and several false starts before any of this translated
into any lasting change but I know that finding FEAST changed my life.

People tell me I should be proud of
myself for my strength and persistence and I am but I don’t for one second
believe that those were the key ingredients in my recovery. I do not believe
that the way I found recovery should be considered roadmap for anyone else. My
recovery is not more real because I did it myself and the fact that my illness
did not kill me first is some sort of miracle. Allowing anyone to continue in
their eating disorder until they can find their own way out is cruel and
misguided and will most likely fail. So while my story is one of hope, it is
not a how-to guide. Hope is a wonderful thing and I am truly honored if my
story can provide that for anyone but hope by itself is not enough. Hope is the
reason to take action, to make a plan and then to change the plan when it isn’t
working - over and over and over again if necessary.

I want to tell caregivers that your
loved one wants to get better even if they can’t show it. Nobody wants to live
in the hell that is an eating disorder but getting out seems impossible and
they need you to believe in recovery for them. I want to tell you that their
unspoken anger and hurt if you do nothing will be far greater and longer
lasting than the words of hatred they will hurl at you when you intervene. And
I want to tell sufferers that recovery is real even though you can’t imagine
it. You are not too broken - you can be whole again. There are so many
wonderful things waiting for you on the other side of this battle. To everyone
facing this hideously unfair and horribly misunderstood illness: just keep
going. This journey is not never-ending and the view from the top is pretty
awesome.

Hannah is 29 and has been in recovery from her eating disorder for five years. She lives in San Diego with her husband and their dog. Hannah currently works at a residential mental health treatment center and plans on pursuing a career in the eating disorder field.

Comments

Thank you for posting this. I am 2 years into a battle with anxiety, depression, self-harm and anorexia with my 14 year old daughter. Her depression and anxiety have been referred to as "treatment resistant," and she often feels hopeless that things will ever be better. I won't give up, and I hope your words will help her to hold on, too.

Thank you so much, Hannah, for sharing your story and your words, and for reminding caregivers that no matter where their loved ones are in this battle, or how entrenched they currently are, hope remains, and is a vital part of the recovery equation. We caregivers are entrusted to not only carry our loved ones forward when they are not able to move, but to hold on to hope for them until they can experience it again too. Hope inspires us -- propels us -- to keep going, and to seek new options rather than give up when something is not working. And thank you even more for reminding our beautiful loved ones that they are not too broken to recover, and that wonderful things truly do await them.

Thank you very much for sharing your story and your thoughts, Hannah. I know you to be a brave and intelligent person, and this post is more evidence of the same.I am sure it will help many people keep hope on the long journey some of us must take.

Warm thanks to you Hannah for this wonderful report about your life! I met you in 2011 when my daughter, now 27 was still suffering mightily. She, too, had been ill from a young age with a number of eating disorders and other serious comorbids. It was inspiring talking with you in 2011 and I have followed your reports with great interest over the years in your blog. My daughter also found her own way through to health from her EDs, although she still struggles with the other disorders. You two are among the bravest people I have ever known. Glad you have found health and joy!

Hi Hannah, thank you for writing this inspiring and realistic story. May I re-print/share it on my blog? I am a Counsellor specialising in Eating Disorders, and I think your story would be very helpful for others. Please let me know if you are ok with that. Thank you. Emma Murphy MIACP

Hannah, I could just highlight and bold and CAPSLOCK everything you've said here. It is all so true and honest and brave.

But I'll limit myself to this nugget: "It allowed me stop searching for reason and meaning where there was none, where there was only ever my own muddled brain chemistry playing malicious tricks on me...I know that finding FEAST changed my life."

From this parent's perspective, this was the key to helping my daughter recover. I'm confident that I am a good parent (side note: ED therapists really hate self esteem in parents!) and that I didn't cause her eating disorder. Learning that there is a biological basis to ED was so beautifully obvious to me. It allowed me to weather the hatred and vileness that ED spewed out during refeeding--I could view these as symptoms and that with continued nutrition and weight gain, the symptoms would abate. Finding FEAST early in our journey made all the difference. I too hold out hope to all parents faced with this confusing and terrifying condition--THERE IS HOPE.

Hannah, you are an amazing and wonderful person. We miss you so much! All the best to you in your new life--I know you will do well, and that you will also do GOOD.

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